(no subject)
Title: Between Here and Now and Forever, Chapter 7
Fandom: Harry Potter
Characters: The Founders, various OCs
Rating: PG
Summary: The faculty are nervous about magical politics, and the students are nervous about exams.
Author's Note: thinkatory betas my work well; all error is mine.
Chapter 1
Master Founders post
Chapter 6
After the disaster at dinner, Lady Aeaeae had prepared to leave by the very next morning, taking her husband with her. Before she left, however, she held a whispered conversation with Rowena. Lord Salazar regarded them from across the room, looking patient but nonetheless rather annoyed. Jasper stood behind him anxiously, peering over his father's shoulder.
"Do you recall what we talked about?" Lady Aeaeae had asked Rowena.
What, do you mean the arrow-slits or Lord Salazar's many faults? wondered Rowena, but she nodded. "Godric and Fudge?"
"Yes, them. Now listen, dear, and I'll tell you what to --" she said.
Rowena held up a hand. "Look," she said, "if this is going to involve me having to do anything other than avoid either of them, I don't want to hear about it."
"Rowena," her mother sighed, "you're being very difficult. If you're going to keep behaving in such a shameful manner, I shall refuse to tell you any more." She then turned to Lord Salazar. "We will be leaving now. We know when we're not wanted," she said rather nastily to him.
"Perhaps you don't," he replied. "If you had, you would never have come."
She wrinkled her nose. "Come, Gualterus," she said sharply, and, like a trained dog, Rowena's father followed her, muttering muzzily to himself.
Rowena shook her head as Lord Salazar withdrew from the room, glaring at Jasper as he left. "The next Council meeting will be fun, won't it?" she asked.
"Almost as much fun as being repeatedly ripped apart by vultures," agreed Jasper cheerfully. "I can hardly wait. Do you think they'll be this awful at the meeting?" he asked.
"Mother won't. She's been pretending to be nice for as long as I've known her. It'll take more than a little Veritaserum to knock that down permanently. Although it was wonderful to watch."
Jasper sighed. "I wish it were like that for my father. He's never going to rest until he's got control of that Council. He'd been saving that trick up for a very desperate situation, but now that it's been used your mother may have to watch what she eats and drinks from now on, or else she'll find herself unexpectedly telling the truth."
"How frightening. No poisons?" asked Rowena.
"Poisons are for inconveniences, not enemies," said Jasper. "Especially not enemies in such a high position that they'd be likely targets of poisoning."
"My mother would never make that distinction," Rowena said. "She'd poison anyone she didn't like if she could. Fortunately, she has to get all her poisons from other people; she's dreadful with potions."
"Oh, come now," said Jasper, "anyone's better than that werewolf."
"Now really," said Rowena, "there's no need to insult him simply because he broke your nose last night. Besides, it's all better now!" She smiled condescendingly. This was not precisely true; Healer Wooton had fixed his nose, but Jasper still had two black eyes to show for his trouble.
"It's not my fault," he muttered. "He's a werewolf. They don't get hurt as easily."
"Serves you right for getting into a fight with him, then, doesn't it?" asked Rowena. "I suddenly realize how your father came to be such an expert in healing potions," she added.
Jasper looked indignant, but Rowena had more important things to do than argue, so she turned and walked away.
* * *
Godric was having a very bad day. He'd been ten minutes late to his first class -- for some reason he was always late -- and then he'd nearly been eaten by a large and innocuous-looking flower of Helga's. And now Lord Slytherin's pet goblin was standing on his desk and pestering him. Godric dared not complain to Lord Salazar. After his outburst at dinner he felt that it would probably be prudent to pretend that he didn't exist for several days, and, as such, he had been staying away from the dungeons all day so as not to run into Lord Salazar.
"...tracking mud into the castle, and otherwise blatantly disregarding rules!" Peeves finished, finally concluding with his long list. Godric glared. He wondered why the goblin hadn't cared to interview Helga's mother about the various crimes he'd committed while being tutored.
"Are you quite finished?" he asked.
"You are taking this far too lightly, human," hissed the goblin.
Godric detected great contempt in the last word, which he considered rather misplaced; the goblin was, after all, a servant. He shrugged. "Oh, no, it's just that I had a mud-tracking expedition planned this afternoon and I wouldn't miss it for the world."
The goblin stared, not seeming to grasp the concept of humor.
"Everyone needs a hobby," added Godric. Confusing the enemy was a strategy he had taken to heart long ago. "Now, are you going to leave?" he asked, glaring.
"Very well," Peeves muttered. He got off of the desk, using some open drawers as steps, and walked quickly out of the room.
Godric stared moodily for a moment at a small bottle of green ink, musing on rules and goblins. His thoughts were interrupted when someone knocked at the door, and he accidentally knocked the ink bottle off of the desk. Godric, muttering to himself, knelt down to retrieve the broken pieces. "Come in," he told whoever it was at the door.
Rowena stepped in, an unpleasant expression on her face. As always, she brandished her wand, as though perhaps someone might try to hurt her if she didn't have it with her. "You can't get into my classroom anymore," she said, voice bordering on sing-song-y.
Godric knew this, having tried unsuccessfully to sneak in earlier that morning to paint the walls bright orange, but he forced himself to look confused. "Why not?"
"Because I got Jasper to put up wards. So don't even try."
"Any chance he could do the same for me?" asked Godric. He wished she'd told him something more about the wards; if he knew what they blocked he would know what he could get away with.
"No," said Rowena.
"So you just came to gloat?"
"Of course not," she said. "I understand that you'd rather not get involved with the Wizards' Council in any way?"
"What have I done now?" asked Godric, startled. This had something to do with his unfortunate outburst at dinner, he decided. Why did I say those things? Now I'm going to be sacked, and it could have been prevented if I had just kept my temper. She's right. I am an idiot.
"Nothing yet," she said, "except you do far too well with transfigurations for your own good."
"Oh," he said, relieved. He went back to picking up the pieces of the ink bottle. Well, a lucky idiot, then. Lord Salazar will probably come around later; no doubt he's very busy with classes or something. Should I prepare a defense? No, no, best to apologize profusely and blame something else. Or perhaps I was possessed -- yes, it was a demon, that's it... no, wait, I don't think most wizards believe in demons. But there must be some equivalent --
"Godric!" shouted Rowena. Godric jumped, which caused him to drop the pieces again.
"What?" he asked.
"What is that?"
"Amazingly enough, it's an ink bottle," said Godric. Looking down at the green puddle on the floor, he muttered, "And quite a lot of ink."
"Why haven't you fixed it?" Rowena demanded.
Godric looked at her. "What do you mean?"
"Why haven't you fixed it?" she repeated.
Godric blinked. "Should I have?"
"It's a waste of perfectly good glass not to," she said peevishly, rolling her eyes.
He frowned to himself. He knew he was missing something in this exchange, though what it was eluded him at the moment. "Fine," he said, turning. "I'll go and get some glue."
Rowena stared. "You can't honestly say you don't know that spell, can you?"
Godric looked back at her. "There's a spell?" he asked. "That would make things simpler, wouldn't it?"
She sighed and shook her head. Jabbing her wand at the shattered glass, Rowena muttered "Reparo!" and the glass coalesced into a bottle again. With another spell, the ink was gone from the floor and back in the bottle. Then she looked up at him inquisitively.
"Thanks," he said, and slowly knelt to retrieve the bottle. "Now what's this about the Council?"
"But what about the --"
"What about the what?"
"Don't you want to know that spell?" she asked.
"It's not important," Godric said quickly. "The Council," he said simply, sitting on the floor so as to be nearly eye-level with Rowena.
"I think my mother's going to prepare Fudge for when they get rid of the Glendowers." She looked at him expectantly. When he said nothing, she asked, "Well?"
"Well what?" asked Godric. "I thought you hated and wanted to kill me. Since when am I part of your little political news ring?"
"It involves you. I thought you ought to know," she said. "You don't care?"
"I don't," he said. "As I said before, I'd rather not get involved with the Council."
"Well," she said, "that's going to be a bit difficult. You see," she explained, "they're going to want Fudge to prove he can do what he says he can."
"Oh," said Godric, sounding uncomfortable.
"Yes," she said. "And they're going to make it a fairly challenging piece of transfiguration," she added.
"Oh," he repeated. "What do they do to him if he can't do it?" he asked, sounding worried.
"We won't find out," said Rowena. "I suspect my mother and her money will feature prominently in his mysterious success, though no public mention of it will be made."
Godric nodded. "But why should I care? For that matter, why do you care?"
She glared. "Because I don't want her gaining any more power. It's bad enough now; she thinks she can make me do whatever she wants -- she thinks she can make you do whatever she wants! Doesn't that bother you? Even a little bit?"
He shrugged. "I've been treated worse," he said simply. "You can't control life, Rowena. It doesn't work like that."
She muttered something that sounded like "Well, it had better start working like that," but did not elaborate. "At any rate," she continued, now speaking to Godric, "we're going to have to scare Fudge."
"Are you?" he said. "Who exactly does 'we' refer to, again? You, Helena, and your dog?"
"Ah, Godric," she said, smiling cruelly, "you're not as stupid as you look. Which would, admittedly, be a challenge for anyone. 'We' refers to me and you."
"No," said Godric flatly. She raised an eyebrow. "No, Rowena, I am not going to go off to frighten someone. Do you know how long I've been doing it? Do you know what it's like to walk into a room and expect everyone in it to fall silent and stare at you and wonder if you're going to kill anybody?" He stood up again, suddenly, and she instinctively stepped back. "No, of course you don't. I hope you never do."
Shaking her head, Rowena reminded herself that this was Godric, this was Runty, the boy she'd asked Helga to throw off of a roof when they were younger. He was hardly dangerous. Taking a deep breath, she started again. "Oh, you'd be surprised. Anyway, when did I ever say anything about you frightening him? He ordered you around for a long while, didn't he? Besides, you're the least frightening person I know."
"So why --"
"You know him. You've worked with him. You know what makes him cringe, what he wants, and how much he'll do for it."
"I thought you knew I didn't want to get involved?"
"You're involved," she said. "Get used to it."
"What if I don't want to?"
She smiled her not-nice smile again. "Tell me, Godric, would you really like to find out? Oh, and either learn Reparo soon or don't break things. It's a simple Latin-derived first-person-singular present-indicative incantation. I mean, really." She shook her head disgustedly, and left.
And just when I thought she'd got the hang of not hating me, too, thought Godric. He shrugged, supposing it was only fair, and went back to his desk to try and get something done.
* * *
After the departure of Lady Aeaeae, time seemed to pass much more quickly. Soon the students were studying for their final exams. Helena hummed to herself as she chose random books out of which she read random passages aloud to random people.
"Ridgebacked dragons," she informed Julian and Devlin the day before their first exams, "have a spectacular mating ritual in which they circle each other --"
"We don't care! Nobody cares!" shouted Julian, who was at his wit's end, he still had not mastered the art of turning pomegranates into apples, and Professor Gryffindor had assured them that this would be on the test.
"Calm down!" said Devlin. "Besides, what are you worried about? You're top of the class in Charms."
"Yes, but that doesn't mean I want to be bottom of the class in Transfiguration," said Julian miserably.
"Perhaps he'll forget the exam is tomorrow," said Helena cheerfully.
Julian glared at her. "Come on, he's not that stupid."
"We could do a Memory Charm on him," said Helena. "It'd be easy."
"Oh really?" asked Julian. "We haven't done those yet. I haven't done those yet, and your lunatic mother who hates me has given me several piles of extra credit work that I'm never going to finish and I'm going to go mad or possibly die, either of which would be very bad!"
Helena and Devlin exchanged worried glances at this uncharacteristically incoherent exclamation. "Have you been eating enough?" asked Devlin.
"He looks pale," observed Helena. "Perhaps he needs rest."
"He always looks pale," Devlin said. "He needs meat. He needs more blood in him."
"What is he, a vampire? It's obvious he needs to sleep," protested Helena.
"Look at that!" said Devlin, poking Julian in the arm. "Skin and bones. He needs food."
"Don't poke me," said Julian grumpily. "I'm just fine, and what I need is for both of you to leave me alone."
"See? He's becoming antisocial. Obviously his mind needs a rest from all this work," Helena said.
"He just needs more to eat. It's hunting instincts, you know, for survival in the wild," said Devlin.
"You're forgetting he's not a smelly little beast like you," said Helena. "He's never been in the wild."
"That's getting personal," Devlin observed.
"Go away!" shouted Julian. They both jumped.
"Fine," said Helena. "Nobody likes a complainer." She turned and left, nose in the air.
"Are you positive you don't want me to bring back a bowl of stew? Some bread?" asked Devlin. Julian glared at him. "All right," said Devlin. "Fail Transfiguration! Have fun, but don't blame me!"
Julian swore under his breath, jumped up from the table he was at, and called after Devlin that perhaps he would like something to eat after all.
* * *
And suddenly the exams were upon them; those tests which are dreaded before their coming yet strangely untroubling when they do arrive. The End was here, and none of them could do anything about it anymore; so, went the general consensus, it was best to pretend that one had repented and get on with it.
Transfiguration was not too difficult. Julian's apple was strangely pomegranate-skinned, while Devlin's was just a tiny bit redder than it needed to be. Helena's own pomegranate had exploded, covering the room with seeds and pulp, for reasons unknown to all, but when the others sniggered she had turned on them and threatened to try and turn them into apples. Professor Gryffindor had then informed her that they would not be studying human-vegetable transformations until much later, but that she was quite welcome to try, although he would rather she did it outside of his class so he wouldn't need to assign detentions. There was no mention of the incident for a long while after that.
Charms was noticeably more difficult, for there was a large written portion on Lady Ravenclaw's test; she evidently felt that anyone who was not mastering the art of reading did not deserve to do well at anything else. There was, however, also a practical test, wherein one had to use a levitating charm on a large chunk of lead. Helena managed to do much better in this area, as did Julian. Devlin, evidently nervous, thought he must've have made the lead a great deal heavier, but once it was retrieved and Lady Ravenclaw had repaired the floor, he succeeded in making the lead float.
Professor Hufflepuff had a selection of simulacra which the students had to disarm and immobilize in the least amount of time, which was made harder by the imitation curses and the startling nature of the simulacra. Not to be outdone by her husband, Mistress Hufflepuff's final test was to successfully transplant a vegetable lamb without using a pot. Devlin had to chase his lamb (which had wandered away in search of greener pastures) and drag it back to the re-planting site without letting it step on its roots. Julian's escaped altogether, but everyone kept taunting him by passing him the plate of lamb that night at supper.
Their Arithmancy test was much less exciting. Devlin felt that, on the whole, he preferred the Arithmancy to the vegetable lambs, but he still wished he had several more fingers to count on, as they would have been very useful with all of these Multiplication Magics they'd been studying.
The Literacy test was highly confusing in its own right: they were given three stories to read and told to scribble down what they felt was the main point of each of them. There was one story about a man who pulled out the arm of a monster and then had to go into a swamp and kill its mother; Devlin decided that meant that "if you're going to pull someone's arm out, you had better be certain that their mother doesn't find out, because she'll kill you."
Then there was another story about a fellow who had decided that making wings out of wax and feathers would be an ideal way to get out of jail. The only problem was that the sun melted the wax on the wings and they fell apart. Devlin wrote that "if he was thick enough to think that wings should be held together by wax, he deserved to be in jail anyway."
The last story was the most complicated; it was about two brothers who had been raised by a wolf and had decided to build a city. One of them, whose name was Romulus, drew a line in the dirt and told the other, whose name was Remus, that this was where the wall of the future city would be. Then Remus, for no particular reason, crossed the line, and Romulus killed him. Devlin wondered who exactly was writing these stories, and whether Lady Ravenclaw and Mistress Hufflepuff knew about it, but he dutifully wrote that "building cities is a dangerous business, especially if you have a homicidal maniac for a brother. Also, people who have been raised by wolves probably don't have good manners so you shouldn't trust them, even if you have also been raised by the same wolves."
He surveyed his work with pleasure, noting that he had written at least two lines of writing for each story (counting scratched-out misspellings), and decided he was quite pleased with himself. The others were evidently trying to write the next Great Epic, and Devlin frowned, wondering if he should elaborate. He checked his writing and decided that no, indeed, it was entirely perfect, and anyone who said otherwise was merely jealous. All they had left now was Potions, which would not, of course, be much of a challenge for an intelligent person such as himself. He sat back in his chair, brimming with smugness, and considered the world at large.
Then Potions came, and it was, Devlin admitted, slightly harder than he had been counting on. He supposed he should have studied more, because he really had no idea what to put into a Nocturnal Nostrum. He vaguely remembered something about tongue of dog, but that might have been for wart remover. Still, he stirred a spoonful of powdered dog's tongue into the mix. Already he had good deal of dragon's bile and some hen's teeth, which, if nothing else, would certainly add to the texture. He felt that dog's tongue would, at the very least, give the potion some extra zing.
As it turned out, it gave the potion a bit more zing than it needed, because while Devlin was adding duck's tears, it exploded. After the smoke had cleared a bit, Lord Slytherin cautiously stepped over to Devlin's cauldron (which had miraculously survived) and peered at the smoking remains of his potion. "Would you mind telling me exactly what was in that?" he asked.
Devlin very much minded, because he was now quite certain that either dog's tongue or hen's teeth had been quite the wrong ingredient, but Lord Slytherin had asked, and saying 'no' probably meant that he would fail the class. "Er," he stated, looking around at his classmates through the hazy air. "Well, um, there was some dragon's bile," he said, "and duck's tears," he said, "and... some dog's tongue as well," he added hesitantly.
"And hen's teeth," said Lord Slytherin, "if I'm not mistaken."
Devlin nodded, then looked at his shoes.
"Well," said Lord Slytherin, "I suppose we all know now why hens with teeth are so rare these days. You might have done well if you hadn't put those hen's teeth in, but thank you for demonstrating their properties for us all," he added.
Devlin brightened. "Does that mean I'm getting high marks?"
"No," said Lord Slytherin cheerily, scribbling something down on a parchment and fanning some smoke away from his face.
Devlin scowled.
* * *
"I failed," said Julian, his head in his hands. They were sitting by the fire in Professor Gryffindor's common room, Julian being the Panicky Student, Devlin playing the role of Supportive Friend, and Helena having assumed the part of the General Nuisance.
"You did not fail," said Devlin. "Look at it this way; at least your pomegranate didn't explode," he added.
Helena glared at him. "Oh, who managed to nearly destroy the Potions classroom in a vain attempt to make a sleeping potion?" she asked.
"Hmmph," said Devlin. "What are you here for, anyway? Doesn't your mother let you stay in her tower anymore?"
"For your information, I came to beat Julian at chess," she said primly.
"Oh, that's just what he needs," said Devlin, rolling his eyes. Julian glared at him. "I -- I mean, not that she would," he added.
"Do you even know how to play chess?" asked Julian.
Devlin shook his head. Julian and Helena exchanged horrified looks.
"We must teach him," said Helena, conjuring the board with a vastly against-the-rules spell.
"Yes, yes, very important," said Julian, scrambling to put the pieces on the board. "Now, I always forget -- do the knights go here?"
"No, no, the pointy-heads -- yes, that's right."
"Pointy-heads? Those are bishops."
"Same thing."
"Helena! That's a horrible thing to say."
"What? They're pointy!"
Professor Gryffindor entered and hurried up the stairs, muttering to himself about pomegranates and apples. Julian froze, counting the footsteps under his breath until he was certain that the professor was safely out of earshot.
Then he took a deep breath. "Good," he said. "Now that that's out of the way.... Helena, you take the white pieces."
"I don't want the white pieces," she whined.
Julian sighed; this was going to be a long game.
Chapter 8
Fandom: Harry Potter
Characters: The Founders, various OCs
Rating: PG
Summary: The faculty are nervous about magical politics, and the students are nervous about exams.
Author's Note: thinkatory betas my work well; all error is mine.
Chapter 1
Master Founders post
Chapter 6
After the disaster at dinner, Lady Aeaeae had prepared to leave by the very next morning, taking her husband with her. Before she left, however, she held a whispered conversation with Rowena. Lord Salazar regarded them from across the room, looking patient but nonetheless rather annoyed. Jasper stood behind him anxiously, peering over his father's shoulder.
"Do you recall what we talked about?" Lady Aeaeae had asked Rowena.
What, do you mean the arrow-slits or Lord Salazar's many faults? wondered Rowena, but she nodded. "Godric and Fudge?"
"Yes, them. Now listen, dear, and I'll tell you what to --" she said.
Rowena held up a hand. "Look," she said, "if this is going to involve me having to do anything other than avoid either of them, I don't want to hear about it."
"Rowena," her mother sighed, "you're being very difficult. If you're going to keep behaving in such a shameful manner, I shall refuse to tell you any more." She then turned to Lord Salazar. "We will be leaving now. We know when we're not wanted," she said rather nastily to him.
"Perhaps you don't," he replied. "If you had, you would never have come."
She wrinkled her nose. "Come, Gualterus," she said sharply, and, like a trained dog, Rowena's father followed her, muttering muzzily to himself.
Rowena shook her head as Lord Salazar withdrew from the room, glaring at Jasper as he left. "The next Council meeting will be fun, won't it?" she asked.
"Almost as much fun as being repeatedly ripped apart by vultures," agreed Jasper cheerfully. "I can hardly wait. Do you think they'll be this awful at the meeting?" he asked.
"Mother won't. She's been pretending to be nice for as long as I've known her. It'll take more than a little Veritaserum to knock that down permanently. Although it was wonderful to watch."
Jasper sighed. "I wish it were like that for my father. He's never going to rest until he's got control of that Council. He'd been saving that trick up for a very desperate situation, but now that it's been used your mother may have to watch what she eats and drinks from now on, or else she'll find herself unexpectedly telling the truth."
"How frightening. No poisons?" asked Rowena.
"Poisons are for inconveniences, not enemies," said Jasper. "Especially not enemies in such a high position that they'd be likely targets of poisoning."
"My mother would never make that distinction," Rowena said. "She'd poison anyone she didn't like if she could. Fortunately, she has to get all her poisons from other people; she's dreadful with potions."
"Oh, come now," said Jasper, "anyone's better than that werewolf."
"Now really," said Rowena, "there's no need to insult him simply because he broke your nose last night. Besides, it's all better now!" She smiled condescendingly. This was not precisely true; Healer Wooton had fixed his nose, but Jasper still had two black eyes to show for his trouble.
"It's not my fault," he muttered. "He's a werewolf. They don't get hurt as easily."
"Serves you right for getting into a fight with him, then, doesn't it?" asked Rowena. "I suddenly realize how your father came to be such an expert in healing potions," she added.
Jasper looked indignant, but Rowena had more important things to do than argue, so she turned and walked away.
* * *
Godric was having a very bad day. He'd been ten minutes late to his first class -- for some reason he was always late -- and then he'd nearly been eaten by a large and innocuous-looking flower of Helga's. And now Lord Slytherin's pet goblin was standing on his desk and pestering him. Godric dared not complain to Lord Salazar. After his outburst at dinner he felt that it would probably be prudent to pretend that he didn't exist for several days, and, as such, he had been staying away from the dungeons all day so as not to run into Lord Salazar.
"...tracking mud into the castle, and otherwise blatantly disregarding rules!" Peeves finished, finally concluding with his long list. Godric glared. He wondered why the goblin hadn't cared to interview Helga's mother about the various crimes he'd committed while being tutored.
"Are you quite finished?" he asked.
"You are taking this far too lightly, human," hissed the goblin.
Godric detected great contempt in the last word, which he considered rather misplaced; the goblin was, after all, a servant. He shrugged. "Oh, no, it's just that I had a mud-tracking expedition planned this afternoon and I wouldn't miss it for the world."
The goblin stared, not seeming to grasp the concept of humor.
"Everyone needs a hobby," added Godric. Confusing the enemy was a strategy he had taken to heart long ago. "Now, are you going to leave?" he asked, glaring.
"Very well," Peeves muttered. He got off of the desk, using some open drawers as steps, and walked quickly out of the room.
Godric stared moodily for a moment at a small bottle of green ink, musing on rules and goblins. His thoughts were interrupted when someone knocked at the door, and he accidentally knocked the ink bottle off of the desk. Godric, muttering to himself, knelt down to retrieve the broken pieces. "Come in," he told whoever it was at the door.
Rowena stepped in, an unpleasant expression on her face. As always, she brandished her wand, as though perhaps someone might try to hurt her if she didn't have it with her. "You can't get into my classroom anymore," she said, voice bordering on sing-song-y.
Godric knew this, having tried unsuccessfully to sneak in earlier that morning to paint the walls bright orange, but he forced himself to look confused. "Why not?"
"Because I got Jasper to put up wards. So don't even try."
"Any chance he could do the same for me?" asked Godric. He wished she'd told him something more about the wards; if he knew what they blocked he would know what he could get away with.
"No," said Rowena.
"So you just came to gloat?"
"Of course not," she said. "I understand that you'd rather not get involved with the Wizards' Council in any way?"
"What have I done now?" asked Godric, startled. This had something to do with his unfortunate outburst at dinner, he decided. Why did I say those things? Now I'm going to be sacked, and it could have been prevented if I had just kept my temper. She's right. I am an idiot.
"Nothing yet," she said, "except you do far too well with transfigurations for your own good."
"Oh," he said, relieved. He went back to picking up the pieces of the ink bottle. Well, a lucky idiot, then. Lord Salazar will probably come around later; no doubt he's very busy with classes or something. Should I prepare a defense? No, no, best to apologize profusely and blame something else. Or perhaps I was possessed -- yes, it was a demon, that's it... no, wait, I don't think most wizards believe in demons. But there must be some equivalent --
"Godric!" shouted Rowena. Godric jumped, which caused him to drop the pieces again.
"What?" he asked.
"What is that?"
"Amazingly enough, it's an ink bottle," said Godric. Looking down at the green puddle on the floor, he muttered, "And quite a lot of ink."
"Why haven't you fixed it?" Rowena demanded.
Godric looked at her. "What do you mean?"
"Why haven't you fixed it?" she repeated.
Godric blinked. "Should I have?"
"It's a waste of perfectly good glass not to," she said peevishly, rolling her eyes.
He frowned to himself. He knew he was missing something in this exchange, though what it was eluded him at the moment. "Fine," he said, turning. "I'll go and get some glue."
Rowena stared. "You can't honestly say you don't know that spell, can you?"
Godric looked back at her. "There's a spell?" he asked. "That would make things simpler, wouldn't it?"
She sighed and shook her head. Jabbing her wand at the shattered glass, Rowena muttered "Reparo!" and the glass coalesced into a bottle again. With another spell, the ink was gone from the floor and back in the bottle. Then she looked up at him inquisitively.
"Thanks," he said, and slowly knelt to retrieve the bottle. "Now what's this about the Council?"
"But what about the --"
"What about the what?"
"Don't you want to know that spell?" she asked.
"It's not important," Godric said quickly. "The Council," he said simply, sitting on the floor so as to be nearly eye-level with Rowena.
"I think my mother's going to prepare Fudge for when they get rid of the Glendowers." She looked at him expectantly. When he said nothing, she asked, "Well?"
"Well what?" asked Godric. "I thought you hated and wanted to kill me. Since when am I part of your little political news ring?"
"It involves you. I thought you ought to know," she said. "You don't care?"
"I don't," he said. "As I said before, I'd rather not get involved with the Council."
"Well," she said, "that's going to be a bit difficult. You see," she explained, "they're going to want Fudge to prove he can do what he says he can."
"Oh," said Godric, sounding uncomfortable.
"Yes," she said. "And they're going to make it a fairly challenging piece of transfiguration," she added.
"Oh," he repeated. "What do they do to him if he can't do it?" he asked, sounding worried.
"We won't find out," said Rowena. "I suspect my mother and her money will feature prominently in his mysterious success, though no public mention of it will be made."
Godric nodded. "But why should I care? For that matter, why do you care?"
She glared. "Because I don't want her gaining any more power. It's bad enough now; she thinks she can make me do whatever she wants -- she thinks she can make you do whatever she wants! Doesn't that bother you? Even a little bit?"
He shrugged. "I've been treated worse," he said simply. "You can't control life, Rowena. It doesn't work like that."
She muttered something that sounded like "Well, it had better start working like that," but did not elaborate. "At any rate," she continued, now speaking to Godric, "we're going to have to scare Fudge."
"Are you?" he said. "Who exactly does 'we' refer to, again? You, Helena, and your dog?"
"Ah, Godric," she said, smiling cruelly, "you're not as stupid as you look. Which would, admittedly, be a challenge for anyone. 'We' refers to me and you."
"No," said Godric flatly. She raised an eyebrow. "No, Rowena, I am not going to go off to frighten someone. Do you know how long I've been doing it? Do you know what it's like to walk into a room and expect everyone in it to fall silent and stare at you and wonder if you're going to kill anybody?" He stood up again, suddenly, and she instinctively stepped back. "No, of course you don't. I hope you never do."
Shaking her head, Rowena reminded herself that this was Godric, this was Runty, the boy she'd asked Helga to throw off of a roof when they were younger. He was hardly dangerous. Taking a deep breath, she started again. "Oh, you'd be surprised. Anyway, when did I ever say anything about you frightening him? He ordered you around for a long while, didn't he? Besides, you're the least frightening person I know."
"So why --"
"You know him. You've worked with him. You know what makes him cringe, what he wants, and how much he'll do for it."
"I thought you knew I didn't want to get involved?"
"You're involved," she said. "Get used to it."
"What if I don't want to?"
She smiled her not-nice smile again. "Tell me, Godric, would you really like to find out? Oh, and either learn Reparo soon or don't break things. It's a simple Latin-derived first-person-singular present-indicative incantation. I mean, really." She shook her head disgustedly, and left.
And just when I thought she'd got the hang of not hating me, too, thought Godric. He shrugged, supposing it was only fair, and went back to his desk to try and get something done.
* * *
After the departure of Lady Aeaeae, time seemed to pass much more quickly. Soon the students were studying for their final exams. Helena hummed to herself as she chose random books out of which she read random passages aloud to random people.
"Ridgebacked dragons," she informed Julian and Devlin the day before their first exams, "have a spectacular mating ritual in which they circle each other --"
"We don't care! Nobody cares!" shouted Julian, who was at his wit's end, he still had not mastered the art of turning pomegranates into apples, and Professor Gryffindor had assured them that this would be on the test.
"Calm down!" said Devlin. "Besides, what are you worried about? You're top of the class in Charms."
"Yes, but that doesn't mean I want to be bottom of the class in Transfiguration," said Julian miserably.
"Perhaps he'll forget the exam is tomorrow," said Helena cheerfully.
Julian glared at her. "Come on, he's not that stupid."
"We could do a Memory Charm on him," said Helena. "It'd be easy."
"Oh really?" asked Julian. "We haven't done those yet. I haven't done those yet, and your lunatic mother who hates me has given me several piles of extra credit work that I'm never going to finish and I'm going to go mad or possibly die, either of which would be very bad!"
Helena and Devlin exchanged worried glances at this uncharacteristically incoherent exclamation. "Have you been eating enough?" asked Devlin.
"He looks pale," observed Helena. "Perhaps he needs rest."
"He always looks pale," Devlin said. "He needs meat. He needs more blood in him."
"What is he, a vampire? It's obvious he needs to sleep," protested Helena.
"Look at that!" said Devlin, poking Julian in the arm. "Skin and bones. He needs food."
"Don't poke me," said Julian grumpily. "I'm just fine, and what I need is for both of you to leave me alone."
"See? He's becoming antisocial. Obviously his mind needs a rest from all this work," Helena said.
"He just needs more to eat. It's hunting instincts, you know, for survival in the wild," said Devlin.
"You're forgetting he's not a smelly little beast like you," said Helena. "He's never been in the wild."
"That's getting personal," Devlin observed.
"Go away!" shouted Julian. They both jumped.
"Fine," said Helena. "Nobody likes a complainer." She turned and left, nose in the air.
"Are you positive you don't want me to bring back a bowl of stew? Some bread?" asked Devlin. Julian glared at him. "All right," said Devlin. "Fail Transfiguration! Have fun, but don't blame me!"
Julian swore under his breath, jumped up from the table he was at, and called after Devlin that perhaps he would like something to eat after all.
* * *
And suddenly the exams were upon them; those tests which are dreaded before their coming yet strangely untroubling when they do arrive. The End was here, and none of them could do anything about it anymore; so, went the general consensus, it was best to pretend that one had repented and get on with it.
Transfiguration was not too difficult. Julian's apple was strangely pomegranate-skinned, while Devlin's was just a tiny bit redder than it needed to be. Helena's own pomegranate had exploded, covering the room with seeds and pulp, for reasons unknown to all, but when the others sniggered she had turned on them and threatened to try and turn them into apples. Professor Gryffindor had then informed her that they would not be studying human-vegetable transformations until much later, but that she was quite welcome to try, although he would rather she did it outside of his class so he wouldn't need to assign detentions. There was no mention of the incident for a long while after that.
Charms was noticeably more difficult, for there was a large written portion on Lady Ravenclaw's test; she evidently felt that anyone who was not mastering the art of reading did not deserve to do well at anything else. There was, however, also a practical test, wherein one had to use a levitating charm on a large chunk of lead. Helena managed to do much better in this area, as did Julian. Devlin, evidently nervous, thought he must've have made the lead a great deal heavier, but once it was retrieved and Lady Ravenclaw had repaired the floor, he succeeded in making the lead float.
Professor Hufflepuff had a selection of simulacra which the students had to disarm and immobilize in the least amount of time, which was made harder by the imitation curses and the startling nature of the simulacra. Not to be outdone by her husband, Mistress Hufflepuff's final test was to successfully transplant a vegetable lamb without using a pot. Devlin had to chase his lamb (which had wandered away in search of greener pastures) and drag it back to the re-planting site without letting it step on its roots. Julian's escaped altogether, but everyone kept taunting him by passing him the plate of lamb that night at supper.
Their Arithmancy test was much less exciting. Devlin felt that, on the whole, he preferred the Arithmancy to the vegetable lambs, but he still wished he had several more fingers to count on, as they would have been very useful with all of these Multiplication Magics they'd been studying.
The Literacy test was highly confusing in its own right: they were given three stories to read and told to scribble down what they felt was the main point of each of them. There was one story about a man who pulled out the arm of a monster and then had to go into a swamp and kill its mother; Devlin decided that meant that "if you're going to pull someone's arm out, you had better be certain that their mother doesn't find out, because she'll kill you."
Then there was another story about a fellow who had decided that making wings out of wax and feathers would be an ideal way to get out of jail. The only problem was that the sun melted the wax on the wings and they fell apart. Devlin wrote that "if he was thick enough to think that wings should be held together by wax, he deserved to be in jail anyway."
The last story was the most complicated; it was about two brothers who had been raised by a wolf and had decided to build a city. One of them, whose name was Romulus, drew a line in the dirt and told the other, whose name was Remus, that this was where the wall of the future city would be. Then Remus, for no particular reason, crossed the line, and Romulus killed him. Devlin wondered who exactly was writing these stories, and whether Lady Ravenclaw and Mistress Hufflepuff knew about it, but he dutifully wrote that "building cities is a dangerous business, especially if you have a homicidal maniac for a brother. Also, people who have been raised by wolves probably don't have good manners so you shouldn't trust them, even if you have also been raised by the same wolves."
He surveyed his work with pleasure, noting that he had written at least two lines of writing for each story (counting scratched-out misspellings), and decided he was quite pleased with himself. The others were evidently trying to write the next Great Epic, and Devlin frowned, wondering if he should elaborate. He checked his writing and decided that no, indeed, it was entirely perfect, and anyone who said otherwise was merely jealous. All they had left now was Potions, which would not, of course, be much of a challenge for an intelligent person such as himself. He sat back in his chair, brimming with smugness, and considered the world at large.
Then Potions came, and it was, Devlin admitted, slightly harder than he had been counting on. He supposed he should have studied more, because he really had no idea what to put into a Nocturnal Nostrum. He vaguely remembered something about tongue of dog, but that might have been for wart remover. Still, he stirred a spoonful of powdered dog's tongue into the mix. Already he had good deal of dragon's bile and some hen's teeth, which, if nothing else, would certainly add to the texture. He felt that dog's tongue would, at the very least, give the potion some extra zing.
As it turned out, it gave the potion a bit more zing than it needed, because while Devlin was adding duck's tears, it exploded. After the smoke had cleared a bit, Lord Slytherin cautiously stepped over to Devlin's cauldron (which had miraculously survived) and peered at the smoking remains of his potion. "Would you mind telling me exactly what was in that?" he asked.
Devlin very much minded, because he was now quite certain that either dog's tongue or hen's teeth had been quite the wrong ingredient, but Lord Slytherin had asked, and saying 'no' probably meant that he would fail the class. "Er," he stated, looking around at his classmates through the hazy air. "Well, um, there was some dragon's bile," he said, "and duck's tears," he said, "and... some dog's tongue as well," he added hesitantly.
"And hen's teeth," said Lord Slytherin, "if I'm not mistaken."
Devlin nodded, then looked at his shoes.
"Well," said Lord Slytherin, "I suppose we all know now why hens with teeth are so rare these days. You might have done well if you hadn't put those hen's teeth in, but thank you for demonstrating their properties for us all," he added.
Devlin brightened. "Does that mean I'm getting high marks?"
"No," said Lord Slytherin cheerily, scribbling something down on a parchment and fanning some smoke away from his face.
Devlin scowled.
* * *
"I failed," said Julian, his head in his hands. They were sitting by the fire in Professor Gryffindor's common room, Julian being the Panicky Student, Devlin playing the role of Supportive Friend, and Helena having assumed the part of the General Nuisance.
"You did not fail," said Devlin. "Look at it this way; at least your pomegranate didn't explode," he added.
Helena glared at him. "Oh, who managed to nearly destroy the Potions classroom in a vain attempt to make a sleeping potion?" she asked.
"Hmmph," said Devlin. "What are you here for, anyway? Doesn't your mother let you stay in her tower anymore?"
"For your information, I came to beat Julian at chess," she said primly.
"Oh, that's just what he needs," said Devlin, rolling his eyes. Julian glared at him. "I -- I mean, not that she would," he added.
"Do you even know how to play chess?" asked Julian.
Devlin shook his head. Julian and Helena exchanged horrified looks.
"We must teach him," said Helena, conjuring the board with a vastly against-the-rules spell.
"Yes, yes, very important," said Julian, scrambling to put the pieces on the board. "Now, I always forget -- do the knights go here?"
"No, no, the pointy-heads -- yes, that's right."
"Pointy-heads? Those are bishops."
"Same thing."
"Helena! That's a horrible thing to say."
"What? They're pointy!"
Professor Gryffindor entered and hurried up the stairs, muttering to himself about pomegranates and apples. Julian froze, counting the footsteps under his breath until he was certain that the professor was safely out of earshot.
Then he took a deep breath. "Good," he said. "Now that that's out of the way.... Helena, you take the white pieces."
"I don't want the white pieces," she whined.
Julian sighed; this was going to be a long game.
Chapter 8